Conviction of ex-Bloods chief a Newburgh milestone

NEW YORK — One afternoon in 2008, a neighborhood in Newburgh's East End began to fill with young men who carried weapons or picked them up as they arrived.

BY DOYLE MURPHY

NEW YORK — One afternoon in 2008, a neighborhood in Newburgh's East End began to fill with young men who carried weapons or picked them up as they arrived.

"There were bottles, blades, bats — basically anything around you that you could see you grabbed," recalled William Overton, a tall, lean drug dealer who was then a new member of the Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation.

Overton and the other Kings clustered on one side of the street while their rivals in the Bloods took a position on the other.

And then it was over.

The Kings and Bloods cleared the block without a single punch thrown.

Overton would later explain the "Big Homies" — the leaders of the rival gangs — had met in the middle of the street and agreed to stay their troops for the day. Everyone obeyed.

Such was the power of Anthony "Double O" Boykin and Nelson "King Gunz" Pagan.

Now Boykin and Pagan, who was convicted in March, each face mandatory life sentences in federal prison as a result of their short-lived dominance. Boykin's conviction on Monday in federal court signaled the end of a chapter in Newburgh's gang history, law enforcement officials said.

A jury found him guilty of racketeering, murder, attempted murder, narcotics conspiracy and gun charges. Boykin, a member of the Bounty Hunter Bloods, was found guilty of murdering Lamont "City" Young in March 2009 and acquitted of charges in the murder of Tyrik Legette, who was killed by a mob of Bloods underlings a month after Young's death.

Boykin's co-defendant, Justin "Justo" Simmons, was also acquitted of murder charges in Legette's death, but jurors found him guilty of racketeering, drug and gun charges that come with a minimum federal prison sentence of 50 years and the possibility of life.

"The Bloods in Newburgh — including Anthony Boykin, the gang's leader, and Justin Simmons, a soldier — have laid siege to that city, making victims not only out of those who they shot, stabbed and killed, but also out of every Newburgh resident who has had to live with the terror wrought by the Bloods' legacy of drugs and violence," Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement.

Lawyers for Boykin and Simmons did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.

FBI Supervisory Senior Resident Agent Felipe Orengo, leader of the Hudson Valley Safe Streets Task Force, has watched the case progress from a meeting four years ago with Newburgh Detective Steven Bunt to a series of major raids to a string of convictions. Boykin was the crowning piece.

"It closes a chapter," Orengo said, "but the work continues. We have so much more."